


Calming

by Kaile (rcs)



Category: Ragnarok Online
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-07
Updated: 2011-04-07
Packaged: 2017-10-17 17:23:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,641
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/179212
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rcs/pseuds/Kaile
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They were kids.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Calming

Another day, another new group of younglings to train. Halloween-- though he was rarely at base, happier doing his own thing wandering the streets of Al de Baran or Prontera, warming the beds of pretty young noblewomen-- was very used to the blank stares and cringing attitudes of most of the children. Each of the first few generations, the ones who taught the youngest ones basic self defense, prepared them for their job training, was by now used to it, and each had their own technique for getting past it. His was candy-- he found that no matter how scared the child, they'd generally warm up to a hand extended with a sweet or five. He knew Cessair's was her hawk, Ferdinand, who tolerated the attention of curious children better than Halloween himself did.

And Asellus... well, he didn't really understand it, but the kids seemed to love her regardless of what appeared to be her refusal to pander to them. Though she wasn't a very affectionate person in general, he often found the youngest, the most frightened, the most damaged children sneaking down the hall to find her room in the dark, and though he'd been there from the beginning, when she'd first been brought to the guild from a church in Prontera, and had been there when she'd woken up screaming for her family as she saw them slain before her eyes, she never seemed surprised or frightened or hesitant to lift her blanket and let them in.

But she'd always been that way, he could remember-- even since the beginning, it'd been hard to _startle_ her. She'd come to the guild about the same time he had-- they'd been in the same training class and initial intake, along with Cessair and two other children who hadn't survived their inital job training-- and from the beginning, she'd been a serious child. It probably had to do with the trauma that had brought her to that church, but the only thing at that point that had seemed to give her pause was picking up the dagger they used to train the novices with for the first time, once they'd turned seven. She'd done as instructed, of course, but even at that age Hallo was good with details, and since he was standing next to her it was hard to miss the trembling as she did it.

That might have been the moment he realized that behind that ultra-disciplined face was a child just as scared as the rest of them, if not more so. And as he looked away from her, to spare her what pride she had, Cessair had caught his eye on her other side, and he knew she'd seen it too. So when playtime came around-- always in the late afternoon as the sun went down over the plains of Geffen and the Fabres began to attempt to burrow down for night--, they hung around her, and while she was originally pretty surprised at her sudden gaining of two friends, and it was hard to get her to even crack a smile, after a few weeks-- wherein she switched from a dagger to a knife and seemed infinitely more comfortable with the move, and they spent their evenings not playing but hunting those Fabres down, presenting fluff and the occasional Emerald to Balthasar with no small amount of pride-- there was a settled pattern between the three.

Though their focus-- and their grouping-- meant a lot of teasing from kids who were older and felt like outsiders, it was usually something that didn't seem to bother Asellus as badly as it did Cessair, who would scrap with the other kids as soon as reason with them. Hallo didn't tend to react outright, though the kids who were the worst about it often found their beds cold and wet when they got into them, or their toys tinkered with, or their clothes muddy before even being worn, but it was usually Asellus who pulled Cessair from the fight, the redhead spitting and kicking like an angry cat as Asellus tried to calm her down, and Asellus who would elbow Hallo out of his revenge dreams. In fact, the other kids were hard-pressed to find any chink in Asellus' armor.

That was, until one day when they were all about nine.

It had been a rougher-than-normal week for the three as they were all busy trying to decide what they wanted to learn, how they wanted to serve the guild. For Hallo, it hadn't been a hard choice-- he wasn't really a big fan of outright fighting, though it wasn't difficult; he preferred the relative ease of life in town to the rough life, and as he'd just started to discover the merchants' daughters in town, it seemed to be a good idea to do something that meant they couldn't help but see him. The guild didn't have a great deal of suppliers for the weaponry they used, or armor, or anything to help maintenance, either. So smithery seemed to be the clear choice for him. And as Cessair moved from the dagger to the bow, showing remarkable eye, he figured she'd go archer with no trouble.

As for Asellus, there was never any real question-- she showed aptitude for the blade, and as long as it wasn't the peculiarly curved blade of a dagger, she did well-- in fact, she seemed to prefer the double-handed blade more than anything, though looking at her she didn't look like she'd be able to pick it up, much less swing it.

It'd been a blade-training day, and in the way of children of the age they were, when Asellus had garnered a lot of praise she also garnered the envious eye of a few kids lagging behind the class. Hallo wouldn't have been surprised to find a weaker monster waiting in Asellus' room, a form of retaliation the kids couldn't be blamed for outright.

Asellus, however, was.

Hallo was halfway down the hall when he heard the scream, a mixture of rage and horror that sent the hairs on the back of his neck up on end. By the time he'd gotten there, the Poring was in gooey pieces on the floor and Asellus was wielding the knife like her life was in danger-- which was distinctly not the case, as the monster was completely strewn across the flagstones. Her eyes were wide and darting here and there, wild and unseeing, and suddenly Hallo knew that if he wasn't careful with her, she wouldn't hesitate to do to him what she'd done to the Poring.

It took him the better part of fifteen minutes, acutely aware of Miru and Balthasar outside the room watching intently in case things took a turn for the worst, to talk her into putting the knife down, and the moment he kicked it across the room, she did something he wouldn't have expected of her in a thousand years-- would have, in fact, bet a hundred thousand zeny against her doing at all-- she burst into tears.

Not the normal, 'kid scraping their knee or getting scared' tears, the quiet things that were easily soothed away and that all three of them had dealt with in the place of the adults, but huge, gulping sobs and a wail that had Balthasar trying to push through the door, only to be tripped up by a small red blur that pushed past both of the boys and curled protectively around the bawling green-haired girl, who held onto Cessair as if life itself depended on it.

There was a dirty stare from golden-brown eyes, a sense of 'what did you DO', but as the freeze-up of crisis let Hallo go, he pushed away from Balthasar and went to join his friends, one of Asellus' hands deathgripping his wrist as he gave a 'we'll handle this' look to the adult rogue, who had no idea how to respond to it, except to look a little baffled and step backwards through the door, where Miru murmured something too low for the kids to hear and led him away to discuss the incident.

After an hour, Asellus was dozing on Cess' shoulder and Hallo was beginning to lose feeling in his fingers when Balth appeared at the door again, and this time Cessair let him close enough to scoop the sleepy girl up and put her in bed with little trouble. Picking up what was left of the Poring was easy enough, and as they left Asellus' room he patted them both on the head gruffly, looking preoccupied as he told them they'd done a good job and to go to bed.

It wasn't until a few days later that Asellus would even speak of the incident, and only by going to Miru's room and having a long sit-down with her. When she emerged from the room, she was almost another person entirely-- still not the most bouncy of people, but a great deal less heavy. And when she smiled at his jokes or Cessair's witty retorts, Hallo didn't get the feeling she was pushing herself at all.

And she stayed pretty much that way even til now, ten or more years later, when she could pick up the daggers and not shake, and when she could grab Hallo and Cess and drag them out to hop a warp to Jawaii and drink in the tavern there, and she could understand exactly how to handle children who came to the guild in the same state she had. She knew how to deal with the crises of faith that came with the horrors of war. And she knew who to go to when she couldn't handle them.

Between candy, animals, and open arms, it wasn't like there was any child they couldn't calm.


End file.
